I'm your host, Jester. I've been an EVE Online player for about six years. One of my four mains is Ripard Teg, pictured at left. Sadly, I've succumbed to "bittervet" disease, but I'm wandering the New Eden landscape (and from time to time, the MMO landscape) in search of a cure.You can follow along, if you want...

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Fit of the Week: Armor Typhoon FI

For this week, I thought I'd do one of those goofy little ships that I love which nobody else does. Besides, I have a feeling this fit is a peek into the future:

Large Trimark Armor Pump I
Large Trimark Armor Pump I
Large Trimark Armor Pump I

Berserker II x5
Warrior II x5
Hammerhead II x5

When you think "armor battleship", most people are going to immediately think of an Amarr ship of some kind and never look back. And sure, it's an understandable inclination. I'm guilty of it myself; my favorite armor battleships are various shades of lighter or darker yellow.

Ripard is now almost entirely nerf-proof. The only ships he can't fly yet are... Amarr battleships. That means when my FC calls for armor battleships, I almost always go to an alt that can fly Amarr. But from time to time, a more goofy-feeling armor BS fleet will come up at which point I'll drag out this fun little red monster. Goons have their Techfleet built on Tempest FIs; I like the Typhoon.

Now to my mind, the proper way to fit a Typhoon is as a close-range brawler. Its seven low slots mean that you can comp a hell of a tank. I go for DC, two EANMs, a single faction hardener and two of the new T2 plates. For the longest time, T2 plates were inferior to the meta4 "RRTs" but for battleships this is no longer the case. While the T2 plates still inflict a fairly significant mass penalty, they now also grant a corresponding bonus in raw armor HP. And with the new Armor Honeycombing skill, the impact of the mass increase is minimized. Combined with three Trimarks, this fit produces nearly 36k armor HP before bonuses with an average resist of 72%. That's good for 170k EHP, which is the equal of most Amarr battleships. You'll be in very good shape, tank-wise, for a close range brawl, particularly if you have Damnation links. Remember to overheat your hardener if you start taking damage! Align time is 11 seconds, so might want to take advantage of the battleship fast warp trick to get around.

Typhoons are still dual weapon system ships, but this is where we're seeing the future. The Cyclone is now a missile boat and it's almost a guaranteed lock that the Typhoon will soon be as well. Even with the split weapons, though, five torp launchers and two auto-cannons plus dual BCSs produce more than 900 DPS at brawling range. With the change in explosion radius bonus from the Guided Missile Precision skill, torpedoes are now practical against smaller targets with faction torpedoes loaded, particularly with a Target Painter fitted. Even better, unlikely virtually every other armor boat, your damage is tunable. The very healthy drone bay of this boat allows you to add five heavies for another 250+ DPS. I like Beserkers for their speed, but since you're likely going to drop them at close range, Ogres are also a quite viable choice. To them add a flight of light drones and some mediums if you're facing T1 cruisers or the like.

The mid slots are open to some interpretation. Since missile boats don't care about transversal, I like a scram and a Target Painter on mine, supplemented by a web. However, a Medium Capacitor Booster is also a good choice since you're going to be using your MWD extensively to close to brawling range. If your fleet has dedicated tackle, you can go with the cap booster, painter, and some ECCM. Thanks to the Torpedo Launchers(1), you're probably not going to have the CPU for a heavy NOS even if you want one. That means a heavy neut instead but use it judiciously if you don't fit that cap booster! I'd stick to using against tackle and shield tanking ships exclusively. The good news is that unless your fleet is comping dedicated neut ships, you might have one of the very few neuts on the field. If your fleet is comping dedicated neut ships, go ahead and fit a third gun instead to boost DPS still more.

The dead-space MWD is the most expensive part of the fit and the most critical. Even with a cap booster you're going to be burning a lot of cap; the reduction in the cap penalty imposed by fitting a MWD is much less with the dead-space MWD.

This ship is ridiculously easy to fly: get in close and pummel your opponents into submission. Enemy FCs that are unaware of how tough you are may call you primary. Let them! You have a third more EHP than a Tempest Fleet Issue and your resists are far higher. Under reps, you're going to be in the thick of the fighting providing very heavy tackle for quite some time.

So this is a weird little boat but I hope you'll agree it's a practical weird little boat! In general, the smaller your fleet size, the more effective it's going to be. Because of its faction shine, it will draw fire away from more fragile high DPS armor ships like Geddons and Megathrons and is far more survivable in a small-gang battleship fight. It also provides impressive DPS against like-size targets and will be particularly effective against opponents that stick with all-Amarr comps thanks to its very strong EM resistance.

The major downside to this boat are the funny looks you'll get in fleet, and the likelihood that it's going to be more than a year before we see it get a re-balancing to make it a pure missile boat. But in the meantime, it's a competitive option.

Get in there and brawl!

All Fits of the Week are intended as general guidelines only. You
may not have the skills needed for this exact fit. If you do not, feel
free to adjust the fit to suit to meet your skills, including using
meta 3 guns and "best named" defenses and e-war. Ships can also be
adjusted to use faction or dead-space modules depending on the budget
of the pilot flying it. Each FOTW is intended as a general guide to
introduce you to concepts that will help you fit and to fly that
particular type of ship more aggressively and well.

(1) Heavens, do the CPU needs of torp launchers need to be reduced some...

5 comments:

Been flying pretty much the identical fit for the last three years and never lost a phoon once in open combat (twice to awoxing of 5 or more ships). More than once have I been traveling through lowsec and hit a camp, to which I found the attackers have fled after seeing the raw dps and tank this thing pulls. I find a 5x torp 3x heavy neut fit works nicely if you are in a fleet and can sacrifice the addition 200 dps from the guns (I prefer 3x 650mm's), the resulting dps is still about one thousand give or take a few. I've rarely seen these ships against me, not a lot of people use them, but they are indeed one of the best battleships if you have the skills and one of the most fun to use.

For ratting in 0.0 I fly almost exactly this fit, but in a regular phoon with long range (cruises/1200 arty), T2 100mn AB and some flights of EC-300's instead of the hammerheads. By no means the highest DPS ratting ship - but you are PVE'ing in a PVP fit. Several T2 frigates and cruisers have discovered to their dismay that it is no easy mark, even when caught in a belt by scramming npc's. I should mention, however, that this is a very high SP ship to fly. You need perfect fitting skills and excellent drone/missile/gunnery skills to fly it well.

I agree the Phoon is a fun ship to fly I do however enjoy the Navy Typhoon over the normal one. and with the CCP changes comming up the Typhoon will prob. (now im scrying in to the future) lose a highslot and be a dedicated Torp/drone boat.

EVE Online and the EVE logo are the registered trademarks of CCP hf. All rights are reserved worldwide. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. EVE Online, the EVE logo, EVE and all associated logos and designs are the intellectual property of CCP hf. All artwork, screenshots, characters, vehicles, storylines, world facts or other recognizable features of the intellectual property relating to these trademarks are likewise the intellectual property of CCP hf. CCP hf. has granted permission to Jester's Trek to use EVE Online and all associated logos and designs for promotional and information purposes on its website but does not endorse, and is not in any way affiliated with Jester's Trek. CCP is in no way responsible for the content on or functioning of this website, nor can it be liable for any damage arising from the use of this website.